Here’s how much rain Charlotte got from Tropical Storm Debby. Latest counts
Five-day rainfall totals after Debby — which began as a drizzle Aug. 6, shifted to downpours through last Thursday and eventually petered out by Saturday — varied several inches across Mecklenburg County.
Though Debby entered North Carolina as a tropical storm and was later downgraded to a tropical depression, the state got pummeled with heavy rain, tornadoes, significant flooding and other severe storm conditions that left thousands without power and killed four people.
The five-day counts from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) — a national nonprofit that measures local rainfall and submits data to the National Weather Service — show totals:
As high as 11.23 inches near Rock Hill, South Carolina (about 25 miles southwest of downtown Charlotte) and
As low as 2.8 inches near High Rock Lake (an hour northeast of Charlotte).
“This data really shows the value of citizen scientists in helping us better understand when and where rain falls during events like this,” said Corey Davis, the NC State Climate Office’s assistant climatologist, adding that there are more than 3,600 active observers in North Carolina.
“The National Weather Service can look at those totals to consider where the local flooding potential is the greatest. And for our state drought monitoring, those reports are also extremely useful to see which areas had enough rain to bring drought improvements, and who might have missed out.”
Even though Debby’s rain began on Aug. 6 in North Carolinas’ western counties, The Charlotte Observer analyzed CoCoRaHS measurements from Aug. 7 to 11. The network’s observations are taken around 7 a.m., so you have to look at the following day (Aug. 7) to get accurate totals from the previous day (Aug. 6), NWS Raleigh meteorologist Tom Green told The News & Observer.
Here are the five-day totals for the Charlotte area beginning Aug. 7. The station names include the distance each rain gauge is from the center of the town/city it’s in with a compass direction.
Search the map yourself at maps.cocorahs.org.
How much rain did Charlotte get from Debby?
An eastern Charlotte neighborhood (near Reedy Creek Park) saw Mecklenburg County’s highest rainfall amounts with 5.89 inches.
Most CoCoRaHS observations Aug. 7-11 in the Charlotte area show between 3.5 and 5 inches of rain.
Charlotte 7.1 miles S: 4.45 inches
Charlotte 8.9 miles NW: 4.43 inches
Charlotte 1.7 miles ESE: 4.0 inches
Charlotte 4.1 miles SE: 3.55 inches
Where did it rain the most in NC from Debby?
Northern Brunswick County saw the highest amounts of rainfall from Debby, Davis wrote in a blogpost for the NC State Climate Office.
A citizen weather observer in Leland had a storm total of 15.75 inches, while a pair of nearby CoCoRaHS observers each recorded more than 14 inches.
Inspired by a story from The Island Packet in Hilton Head, South Carolina.